Pixability Uncovers Stark Year-Over-Year Changes in the Online Beauty Landscape in Major Update to Landmark Beauty on YouTube Study

New high-growth beauty segments emerge while independent beauty creator A-list shifts

Boston, MA — With 45.3 billion total beauty views and 123,164,115 beauty subscriberships, YouTube remains the world’s leading online video consumption platform for the beauty industry. Video ad buying and marketing technology company Pixability today released “Beauty on YouTube 2015,” an update to its landmark study of the beauty ecosystem on YouTube. The comprehensive study reveals major year-over-year changes in the YouTube beauty landscape, with significant implications for beauty brands, creators, and advertisers.

The study analyzes the YouTube practices of 215 beauty brands and 182,621 independent YouTube beauty creators, and 1.78 million beauty videos on YouTube that have accumulated 45.3 billion total views. The beauty ecosystem on YouTube has evolved significantly over the past year, based on the quantity and variety of beauty content available; the audience composition; the amount of advertising dollars being invested; and the reach and influence of beauty creators. Viewership of brand-produced beauty content on YouTube grew 35% faster than the overall beauty industry in 2014, due in large part to a strategic blend of paid ad campaigns, critical organic optimizations, and beauty content creator sponsorships.

“Beauty on YouTube 2015” will equip beauty brands and their agencies with the insights needed to develop a data-driven paid advertising approach to YouTube; identify and partner with influential YouTube beauty creators; and expand their audience through emerging high growth beauty segments on YouTube. The study unveils trends and findings extracted from Pixability’s v3 software, and delivers both critical market insights and prescriptive guidelines for beauty brands and their agencies. Some of the report’s key findings include:

• YouTube’s beauty content, audience, and consumption habits have evolved. YouTube’s beauty ecosystem experienced a 50% growth rate in views from January 2014 — April 2015, and 55% of video views occur on mobile devices.
• YouTube’s beauty creator A-List is changing. Bethany Mota has overthrown Michelle Phan as YouTube’s top beauty creator with 8.7 million subscribers (compared to Michelle Phan’s 7.7 million subscribers). A new roster of up-and-coming creators is rivaling the established A-list beauty queens.
• Beauty brands are increasing YouTube paid media spend to catch up to creators. Total monthly views of beauty brand-produced content on YouTube have increased 78% from January 2014 — April 2015.
• Emerging high-growth content categories present new opportunities for brand engagement. Interest in mature beauty content, men’s grooming, and crossover content (beauty + fashion or beauty + comedy) has grown disproportionately to the amount of available content in each category.

“The beauty space on YouTube is massive and constantly evolving, and having a solid understanding of our audience and the influential beauty creator community is critical to our digital strategy,” said Andrea Barton, Global Social Community Manager, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics. “The data and insights contained in Pixability’s beauty study have become a key resource to help us plan and optimize our online video campaigns, and engage with current and potential customers on YouTube.”

“Pixability’s original 2014 Beauty on YouTube study has had a measurable effect on how global beauty brands and their agencies navigate the YouTube beauty ecosystem,” said Rob Ciampa, Chief Marketing Officer of Pixability. “Following the widespread adoption of our original study by beauty brands worldwide, Pixability recognized the need to reanalyze YouTube’s dynamic beauty industry and highlight significant shifts that brand marketers should be aware of. This resource will position beauty brands for success as they increase paid spend and execute marketing campaigns on YouTube.”

Pixability’s 2014 beauty study, “Beauty on YouTube: How YouTube is Radically Transforming the Beauty Industry and What That Means for Brands” became a call to action for many of the world’s leading beauty brands, who were surprised to discover that independent beauty content creators on YouTube were far more successful at attracting an audience, engaging subscribers, and owning the conversation around branded products on YouTube than they were.

Pixability will present findings from the study at the Women’s Wear Daily (WWD) Digital Summit on June 10, 2015 in New York City. For a comprehensive look at all major findings and best practices contained in “Beauty on YouTube,” download the full report here. For more information about the report, email Pixability at marketing@pixstage.wpengine.com or call 888-PIX-VIDEO (888-749-8433).

Study Methodology

Pixability used its patent-pending YouTube ad buying and video marketing software to extract metrics on each beauty creator’s and beauty brand’s YouTube channel, videos, audiences, and social networks. Pixability’s software automatically collected a list of hundreds of candidate channels using loose beauty- related filtering criteria. The list was reduced to 215 beauty brands and 182,621 beauty creators who produce and publish YouTube videos falling within the makeup, skincare, hair care, nails, and perfume categories. Data on social behavior and view metrics from 1,783,935 YouTube beauty videos was harvested using Pixability’s software. Metrics analyzed include: number of videos per channel; number of views; number of channel subscribers; number of views, comments, Likes, and Dislikes per video; metadata metrics for each video, such as number of tags and description lengths, publishing date, and video length; and number of times each YouTube video was shared on Facebook and Twitter. The public APIs ?of the two services were queried with the exact YouTube video URLs to gain this information. The data represented in Beauty on YouTube 2015 includes full and exact counts of the metrics described above. No sampling, estimates or regressions were used. Only beauty brands with a predominantly English-language YouTube presence were included in Pixability’s data scan. Brands that had an online presence exclusively or primarily in a language other than English were excluded from this study. To ensure authenticity of the YouTube channels included, only official YouTube channels owned by brands and verified beauty creators were analyzed.

About Pixability

Pixability, Inc. is an ad buying and video marketing platform for YouTube. Many of the world’s top brands and agencies depend on Pixability’s award-winning programmatic media technology for effective YouTube campaigns with complete transparency and reporting accuracy. Pixability enables media professionals to plan smarter placements, run faster campaigns, and see better results. Pixability is headquartered in Boston with offices in New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and London. For more information, please visit www.pixability.klikz.us.

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Contact:
Alexandra English
Pixability, Inc.
617.952.4659
alexandra@pixstage.wpengine.com